Talk:Gecko (software)

SecurityFocus cite
On 01 Nov 2004, this article was cited in a SecurityFocus article on phishing. Securiger 06:50, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Format of the page title
Shouldn't this page be called Gecko (layout engine) to match the related pages Trident (layout engine), Tasman (layout engine), and Presto (layout engine)? -Rjo 09:23, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
 * It probably should. I'll do that now. &alpha;&gamma;&delta;&epsilon;&epsilon; (&tau;) 23:20, 2004 Nov 25 (UTC)

Gecko Mozilla rendering engine
The content in this page, while tentatively accurate, is misleading. The fact is that "Gecko" is not the official name, but Netscape's branded name. "Gecko" is used to describe Mozilla's NGLayout and XPFE. Please see http://www.mozilla.org/newlayout/gecko.html

I will eventually get around to trying to correct this (unless someone else volunteers :-)?).
 * That link is to a press release from seven years ago. For the past five years I've been using Mozilla browsers, Mozilla developers have called the layout engine "Gecko." I can come up with plenty of recent references if you can't find them yourself. -- Schapel 05:17, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

they use that because they are used to it but it's not the name of the layout engine anymore, unless they change the name at their site and here's a quote of the name in that page "New Layout (Gecko) The goal of the New Layout project is to create a fast, small, standards-based layout engine designed for performance and portability." and gecko is in those parentheses show that it was called that way before and not now.


 * The website is simply not updated well enough. The commonly used name is indeed Gecko. --asqueella 18:57, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * http://www.mozilla.org/newlayout/faq.html#What%20is might be useful. &mdash; Ian Moody (talk) 13:17, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

PDF on Linux only
According to Stuart Parmenter, it's likely PDF export will be available on Linux only (cf. http://www.pavlov.net/blog/archives/2006/01/mozilla_cairo_u.html#comment-381). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.159.119.11 (talk • contribs) 02:54, August 19, 2006.

There is no longer any impediment to using cairo for PDF export on all platforms. The dependency on FreeType for generating PDF files was removed in cairo 1.2.2 released August 8, 2006 http://www.cairographics.org/news/cairo-1.2.2.

Main Image
Wouldn't it make more sense for the main article image to be of Firefox not Epiphany, I'm an Epiphany user myself but I would of thought that it would be more logical for the main article image to be of the most popular gecko engine browser with epiphany/[insert other browser here] being examples of other browsers using it. gord

External link
I'm not sure why was this link added to this page. There are tens of thousands of pages related to mozilla, doesn't mean we should list all of them in the article. Can someone enlighten me? --asqueella 01:30, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Link to commercial app in "Other apps" section
I'm the product manager for Accept 360, one of the few (we believe) commercial apps that is implemented using the Gecko engine. I put a link to Accept 360 in this article (in the Other Applications" section) about a year ago, but it was removed in October 2006, without any comment. My thought was that the existence of a commercial application using XUL was relevant. On the other hand, I have a personal stake in the product. What's the consensus of this page's stakeholders on the appropriateness of my adding the link back?

Thanks!

Nils Davis 19:54, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Table for Versions
It would be very useful to add a table what version is used in which browser (only main browsers) with major changes... (gecko1.0/1.8/1.9 etc. and what i missed)

i was surfing the wiki of the comparrision of layout_engines and saw in these tables that there are support for different standards for different version of geckos and had no comparrision for gecko! 79.211.233.83 16:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. I proposed something similar in Moz Application Suite, "Section - A collective name for all Mozilla-based browsers":
 * I was just wondering if a comprehensive table of version numbers of all related browsers might be drawn up? Looking at the release history in the SeaMonkey article, there are columns that tell you which branch version each version is built from (for example, SeaMonkey v 1.1.5 comes from rv 1.8.1). I think that if we had something which listed Firefox, Netscape, SeaMonkey, Camino, Flock, K-Meleon, Galeon, Epiphany etc, all together, then this might help people to know which product has the latest additions to the layout engine, security, etc (considering that release dates do not always indicate this) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.232.19.118 (talk) 17:51, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

How is popularity measured?
According to the article gecko is the second most popular engine -- I assume popularity is measured by how many users a given rendering engine has. Given the complexities of measuring this kind of popularity and it's uncertainties, and the fact that the majority of users doesn't actively choose a rendering engine, but rather chooses a user interface, when an active choice is made, I propose that the notion is either removed, clarified or changed so that the number of software projects (where a choice regarding the rendering engine is made), is more important than the number of users. FrederikHertzum 17:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Why not simply change the wording from "second most popular" to "second most used"? The new wording completely clarifies the intended meaning. That fact is not disputed at all, and is very important because most web developers need to test with the most popular layout engines because there are too many browsers to test against. -- Schapel 17:47, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Update needed
The 1.9 section really needs to be updated. It only has ultra-preliminary speculation in it, we know more sure things about Gecko 2.0 than what the article lists for 1.9! --NetRolller 3D  21:24, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

logout image
Current image is including a user name from Wikipedia. Can someone take a screenshot without a user logging-in?--OsamaK 17:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Dead Link
The link has died for the Gecko homepage. 142.177.88.140 (talk) 16:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Mozilla 2?
Can anyone contribute anything to the Mozilla 2 section. Any major differences would be great to note. --71.170.132.183 (talk) 23:12, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Mozilla Suite
Should mozilla suite add to the table? Matthew_hk  t  c  01:13, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

epiphany
epiphany has changed to webkit



90.237.186.221 (talk) 17:36, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

FF 3.7
Just to make it clear: I think it is silly to include alphas, betas or anything pre-relase in this table. Beltzner stated today, that there'll be no 3.7 release (e.g. first slide here). --Berntie (talk) 22:28, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * There is not planned to be a final release of Firefox 3.7, but there are four alpha builds. Why not include them? What if someone wants to look up which Gecko version the newest Firefox is using? Perhaps it's not a useful piece of information to you, but surely others find it useful. -- Schapel (talk) 22:52, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * So, what if someone comes across the article, thinks "Cool, FF 3.7 uses Gecko 1.9.3", goes looking for it, and... just doesn't find anything? Just putting that version number in a table without any additional clarification is heavily misleading. I mean, there will be FF 3.6.4 (and we don't know what Gecko version that will be using) but 3.7 just doesn't exist. Mozilla dumped it, it never saw light. Regardless of any alphas out there.


 * But a reader will assume that there is/was a version 3.7, when he gets that number presented in the table. I can't imagine that being helpful. --Berntie (talk) 23:24, 11 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Since you've re-inserted 3.7 I've added a footnote for clarification. --Berntie (talk) 11:51, 12 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There was a 3.7 version and there is a 3.7 version. I am running it right now. Please do not remove correct and useful information from Wikipedia. Thank you. -- Schapel (talk) 14:08, 12 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, there was never a 3.7 release and there will never be. Correct me, but Wikipedia should be an encyclopedia for the average reader, not software developers. Thus
 * just putting that version number in a table without clarification is fucking around with the reader, because it simply misleads him into thinking that there is a 3.7 release
 * it would be silly to talk about nightly builds/alpha versions/release candidates of officially dropped software versions


 * I can, however, agree about the footnote in its current form. --Berntie (talk) 15:05, 12 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There is a 3.7 release. It even appears in web stats such as NetApplications. It was not dropped -- it will only be renamed. Additionally, there is clarification in the table -- I fixed the stoopid clarification you added with the correct information. -- Schapel (talk) 15:09, 12 May 2010 (UTC)


 * "There is a 3.7 release." Yeah, sure. "Additionally, there is clarification in the table" Well, yes. Why do you think did I write "I can, however, agree about the footnote in its current form."


 * "stoopid" Hmmm, that's an interesting term. :-) --Berntie (talk) 16:58, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

additional column to table
can somebody help me with the table to add a new column what was in the release of gecko version X.XXX? want to create it similar to Presto (layout engine). mabdul 18:50, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I would be willing to help, but I think it would make sense to create a new table with Gecko version, release date, code name, equivalent Mozilla Application Suite or Firefox release, notable new features, etc. -- Schapel (talk) 15:29, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * mmh, that does make sense. I will set up uch a table ;) mabdul 20:27, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * started to prepare that table. everybody is included to help now ;) mabdul 13:53, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I have filled in the rows for early Mozilla releases that were not listed. Release notes for the versions are available at http://www-archive.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla / :, , , etc. -- Schapel (talk) 13:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)


 * THX. will help you... On Friday I will have enough free time ;) mabdul 15:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Flock never used past Gecko 1.9.0
In March I noticed an error in the browser Gecko usage grid for Flock and corrected it. In May someone else undid it. Don't assume; actually check.

I just downloaded two old versions of Flock into a Window XP VM from: http://www.filehippo.com/download_flock/

Check the "about:" pages and their user agent strings:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.16) Gecko/2010010414 Firefox/3.0.16 Flock/2.5.6

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.19) Gecko/2010062819 Firefox/3.0.19 Flock/2.6.1

Flock 2.0.x, 2.5.x, and even 2.6.x all use versions of Gecko 1.9.0.x. They never upgraded past Gecko 1.9.0. All Flock 2.x is equivalent to Firefox 3.0.x in terms of Gecko. They did not keep up with Firefox development.

Newer Flock versions are of course no longer Gecko based at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.114.185.84 (talk) 20:21, 12 November 2010 (UTC)


 * You should put in a citation instead of doing original research and expecting others too also. -- Schapel (talk) 21:23, 12 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Cite what? If I knew of a better place to cite I would've done so here. There are no citations for the source of any versions in this table. It's a list of browser versions and their Gecko versions. The only thing to cite is the browsers' about pages. The main Flock page is out of date too (but I'm not going to update that). I just wanted to re-correct the list so that when other extension developers come looking to see what's available where it's not wrong. The difference between 1.9.0 and 1.9.1 is large enough to decide whether to drop support or not, so it should be listed correctly. Of course it's all irrelevant now that Flock isn't even Gecko based at all anymore, but it nonetheless annoyed me that someone else (without citation or discussion) reverted my prior correction. ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.114.185.84 (talk) 05:45, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I just did a Google search for Flock 1.0 Gecko 1.8.1 and found some pages you could cite. If you don't provide a citation, don't be surprised if you come back to find someone has "corrected" the information again. -- Schapel (talk) 16:49, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I said nothing about Flock 1.0... not sure why you're talking about that. The best I can find is the release notes for Flock 2.5 which implies they're still on Gecko 1.9.0 by saying they "Incorporated Mozilla's 3.0.10 patch for Firefox". This is about as good as you're going to get, and it doesn't belong cited in the table unless you also do so for every other version listed, none of which have any citations. Sorry to break it to you, the only way these things are added is by people actually looking in the about dialogs. There's no point in adding one citation for a now dead browser, seeing as they remade the new Flock based on Chromium.
 * Sometimes the only thing you can do is actually look at the information, and whomever changed it to the wrong one just didn't bother. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.114.185.84 (talk) 21:08, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

8.0a1 is new preview release
Well, I think it's update time, no? :)-andy 217.50.49.10 (talk) 08:16, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

The table for Firefox needs to be updated
Firefox Release is now version 23. The table needs to be updated. I would do it, but Wikipedia does not like anybody with a close connection to the topic to edit an article. I am a Mozilla Beta Tester.

DevynCJohnson (talk) 21:38, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Update needed to market share information
Some information on this page is incorrect. Specifically, the following section:

"Gecko is the third most-common layout engine on the World Wide Web, after Trident (used by Internet Explorer for Windows since version 4) and WebKit (used by Safari and Google Chrome).[6][7]"

Google Chrome no longer uses WebKit, they recently forked WebKit and created a new open source project called Blink (which is the rendering engine now used in Chrome).

Gecko may now be the fourth most common layout engine (after Trident, Webkit and Blink).

Jacobg415 (talk) 18:32, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Out of date compiler info? And useless table..
"On Windows and similar platforms, Gecko depends on non-free compilers. Thus, FOSS distributions of Linux can not include the Gecko package used in the Windows compatibility layer Wine.[32]"

Not sure about the non-free compilers? Not true any more? Gecko is the browser component in Wine now? Doesn't that make the rest false? And the ref (and all under this section) don't match the refereneces. Seems to be because of the table. BTW. I've been adding to the table but think I will stop. It seems (mostly) useless (now). Cut it out entirely? Or say "version history up to X" where X is probably 1.9.2. Other projects used Gecko, but not so much anymore. SeaMonkey is "kind of" Firefox and PaleMoon more so (table not updated), but mostly they are based on Firefox in general and Gecko is not a separate project (with an indepented version number) anymore? comp.arch (talk) 11:22, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

It IS software but ALSO a layout engine
From their page: "Gecko is the name of the layout engine developed by the Mozilla Project". Why change title? "Web (layout?) engine" could also be true. Is it something more? "Software" could be anything. Not saying I disagree, just not sure why. comp.arch (talk) 13:03, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Sources modified on Gecko (software)
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External links modified
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FYI: Gecko is cross-platform, so is Goanna
On this revert: " "cross-platform" [..] the concept doesn't apply to a Gecko until it is compiled"; it's source code that is actually cross-platform (e.g. Python and Julia language source code is). [Actually you're wrong, after compiling, as with all binaries, each one made is no longer cross-platform, but tied to the CPU arch and OS; why Julia is great, as fast as C, in practice more cross-platform than C). You can reuse Gecko (as was done in the past), not only Firefox as a whole. Yes, you would have to strip out (maybe not even, as dead-code optimizer of compiler would?) non-Gecko parts now.

On Gecko itself, yes, you need to compile it, but need not into Firefox, e.g. Palemoon uses or used it (as it was a fork of Firefox, and non-Firefox parts changed, but Goanna fork happened later). And now Goanna (software) is a fork of Gecko.

On what Mozilla says, "paint them using our cross-platform graphics APIs (which, underneath, map to platform-specific graphics APIs)." in Gecko:Overview not Firefox:Overview. Those "cross-platform graphics APIs" are in Gecko "library", not non-Gecko part of Firefox. comp.arch (talk) 19:04, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi.


 * First and foremost, "cross-platform" isn't the name of an operating system, so inserting it into operating system or platform is wrong. These fields intend to hold OS names or platform names only.


 * Second, your quotation here is significant: "Actually you're wrong, after compiling, as with all binaries, each one made is no longer cross-platform, but tied to the CPU arch and OS". Do you know what you just did? You disputed the definition given in the cross-platform article and gave one of your own. Actually, when I come to think of it, I've never seen a person who has given a definition of cross-platform that matches the definition of the other person. "Cross-platform" is a buzzword and must be avoided.


 * Third, you wrote "you need to compile it, but need not into Firefox". Why did you insert Firefox versions in the infobox then?


 * Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 05:13, 3 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I changed the article, I think you'll be ok with it.


 * "Cross-platform software may be divided into two types; one requires individual building or compilation for each platform that it supports, and the other one can be directly run on any platform without special preparation, e.g., software written in an interpreted language". Seems I'm consistent with that lead, of the article on it. My point, about binaries being tied to an OS isn't controversial: In non-lead: "Executables only support the operating system and computer architecture that they were built for"


 * I looked at what Skia Graphics Engine, says. It just lists OSes, avoids the term "cross-platform". Feel free to rewrite it out of the text (I just changed, added it back as a verb..). Note also, Skia can be compiled but not run directly, as it's just a library, similar to Gecko. Still it supports many OSes (and not others/all); thus is "cross-platform", at least to my understanding.. I might be wrong on when the term is usually applied (I'm just thinking in my CS way). Firefox used to not use Skia, now does (at least on some platforms, if not all). Strictly speaking Skia could be the cross-platform part and not Gecko that drives it. If so, then the Gecko code is completely platform-independent, in my view also cross-platform. :) comp.arch (talk) 10:34, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Quantum (Mozilla)
I support the proposed merge, because informaiton about the Quantum project can easily be a section on this page. As it's a continuation of the same software (and not a branch), it seems like the right idea. - - mathmitch7 (talk/contribs) 18:47, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

That makes as much sense as merging Electric motor into Internal combustion engine because both are used to propel cars. The whole point of Quantum is being a replacement for Gecko without using any of it. If Quantum didn't merit a stand-alone article (though it does), and given that we don't have a general article about Firefox technology, a better merge target would be Firefox itself or History of Firefox, or even maybe Features of Firefox. But I don't think it makes sense to merge that article anywhere else. Diego (talk) 08:25, 31 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Quantum isn't a replacement for Gecko, though. 75.91.200.212 (talk) 11:35, 21 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Echoing the anonymous commenter above: Quantum is the codename for a bunch of Gecko improvements that made their way into mainline for Firefox 57. This is *exactly* why these two articles are proposed for merge.  Quantum is neither a new browser engine, nor is it a fork of Gecko... -- C. A. Russell ( talk ) 02:15, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Support, there doesn't seem to be enough for an entire article for Quantum.


 * Support, Quantum is Gecko. AdA&D  ☆ 14:42, 20 April 2019 (UTC)


 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 11:55, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Standards Support section is outdated
Information about web standards support for the Gecko engine is outdated. Complete support for CSS 3 and HTML 5 (Among other newer web standards) have already been implemented on the Gecko engine years ago. JF001 (talk) 20:12, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

history sections
I did find 1 source for this large part of the page:

Development of the layout engine now known as Gecko began at Netscape in 1997, following the company's purchase of DigitalStyle. The existing Netscape rendering engine, originally written for Netscape Navigator 1.0 and upgraded through the years, was slow, did not comply well with W3C standards, had limited support for dynamic HTML and lacked features such as incremental reflow (when the layout engine rearranges elements on the screen as new data is downloaded and added to the page). The new layout engine was developed in parallel with the old, with the intention being to integrate it into Netscape Communicator when it was mature and stable. At least one more major revision of Netscape was expected to be released with the old layout engine before the switch.

After the launch of the Mozilla project in early 1998, the new layout engine code was released under an open-source license. Originally unveiled as Raptor, the name had to be changed to NGLayout (next generation layout) due to trademark problems. Netscape later rebranded NGLayout as Gecko. While Mozilla Organization (the forerunner of the Mozilla Foundation) initially continued to use the NGLayout name (Gecko was a Netscape trademark), eventually the Gecko branding won out.[citation needed]

In October 1998, Netscape announced that its next browser would use Gecko (which was still called NGLayout at the time) rather than the old layout engine, requiring large parts of the application to be rewritten. While this decision was popular with web standards advocates, it was largely unpopular with Netscape developers, who were unhappy with the six months given for the rewrite. It also meant that most of the work done for Netscape Communicator 5.0 (including development on the Mariner improvements to the old layout engine) had to be abandoned. Netscape 6, the first Netscape release to incorporate Gecko, was released in November 2000 (the name Netscape 5 was never used).[citation needed]

As Gecko development continued, other applications and embedders began to make use of it. America Online, by this time Netscape's parent company, eventually adopted it for use in CompuServe 7.0 and AOL for Mac OS X (these products had previously embedded Internet Explorer). However, with the exception of a few betas, Gecko was never used in the main Microsoft Windows AOL client.[citation needed]

On July 15, 2003, AOL laid off the remaining Gecko developers and the Mozilla Foundation (formed on the same day) became the main steward of Gecko development. Today, Gecko is developed by employees of the Mozilla Corporation, employees of companies that contribute to the Mozilla project, and volunteers.[citation needed]

is that normal? V21v (talk) 16:38, 27 April 2023 (UTC)